Semantics
by wrldpossibility
Summary: Title: Semantics Characters: Sara Tancredi, Michael Scofield Warning: Character death Author's Note: I wrote this last week for the Survivor game, so some of you may have already seen it. I didn't post it earlier because I'm not sure how many of my friends on my f-li


"Michael."

Her voice is so soft, he has to press the cell phone forcefully against his ear to hear her, the plastic digging into the skin of his temple. "They're making me call you," she says. "There's a message."

 _"_ _Sara."_ It's not a question or a statement. It just comes out of his mouth as a whisper.

There's a sound like shuffling papers in the background, and when she speaks again, her voice is strangely dispassionate. It only takes Michael an instant to realize she's reading something. "Um, your time is up, and Whistler's still in Sona. You remember the consequences of failure." There's a pause in which Michael can hear only the sound of Sara breathing. It's disjointed and halting in his ear. In his mind's eye, it's easy to see her chest rising and falling in an effort for control, her shoulders bent forward with the weight of restrained panic. He feels the tension like a living thing; it's coursing through his own veins, burrowing into his own thoughts. When she speaks again, her tone has suddenly regained its emotion. She's no longer reading, and her voice wavers, then breaks, making it even harder for Michael understand her. "I'm supposed to ask you if you want to buy another week?"

Michael blinks. _Another week?_ "Yes!" he chokes. He repeats himself, desperate to be clear. "Sara. Yes!"

There's another long pause, in which he listens once again to Sara's muffled breathing. She's trying not to cry. "What is it?" His own voice is now a plaintive wail, low and deep. He doesn't need to speak in an undertone, but he does anyway. Somehow, it seems safer, more prudent. As though shouting from the rooftops will tempt fate in a way whispering in the dark will not. "What's happening?"

She makes an abrupt sound, like a startled whimper that is almost immediately silenced, and Michael abandons his low tone without a moment's hesitation. _"What is happening?!"_ he repeats frantically. At first there's no answer, and he yells again.

She's openly crying now. When she finally answers, her voice is even more stifled, and he presses the phone to his ear so hard, he feels pain. "You're supposed to ask the price," she tells him. "The price, um, of another week?"

Suddenly, her reluctance to communicate the message she is being instructed to say makes sickening sense. Michael feels his stomach muscles clench involuntarily, and he has to suck in a deep gulp of air to keep from retching. _They're going to make him choose,_ he realizes. _Sara or LJ, in exchange for another week. Oh God._

He spins in place, raking his hand across his scalp. "Don't tell me," he says suddenly. "You don't have to say it." He's whispering again, his tone an attempt to soothe. "Just tell me what you want me to do," he implores. "How I can fix it."

"You can't fix it." She sounds slightly calmer now, and despite her words, Michael feels the tiniest tug of hope. His thoughts are flying madly through his head, searching for anything to latch onto. Any foothold at all. "I won't let you," she continues, and his optimism plummets like a rock. _"I've_ made the choice."

 _"_ _No."_ He shakes his head viciously. "No!" There's another sound, a scuffle, and he yells in earnest, screaming into the phone. _"Sara!"_ He wonders how it is that one word can serve as a entreaty, a caveat, and an endearment all at once.

"Michael, talk to me." She's speaking quickly now, and he has the horrific sense of a clock ticking. "It was real, right?"

"Sara," he pleads. "We're not doing this." Time seems to be doubling on itself now, the seconds sliding by in a crazed blur.

"You and me. _It was real."_ There's another painful pause. When she speaks again, there's a new edge of panic that is nearly swallowing her words. "I want to hang up, but they're not letting me-"

 _"_ _Sara…"_

"I'm sorry that I'm crying. I'm trying not to cry." She's rambling almost incoherently, and gulping air, and despite the pounding of his pulse, he feels his heart breaking. _What does she need? What can he give?_ "You should hang up," she gasps. "You hang up, Michael."

He's desperate to answer her, but he's weeping too hard. _Answer her,_ he thinks frantically. _Answer! Don't make her wait!_ Finally, something dislodges in his brain and the words are released in a torrent. "I'm not hanging up, Sara. I'm here."

 _"_ _Hang up!"_

 _"_ _I'm here."_

There's another scuffle in the background, then a dull thump. Without being told, he knows it's the sound of Sara's knees hitting a wooden floor. And then it's upon them, it is finally laid bare, the horrific moment in which he can do _nothing._ "I love you," he cries. He is begging her, but for what, he doesn't know.

There is no sound for what feels like an eternity. Maybe it is. Then she speaks, and the words are so tight with fear, he can only imagine the effort it takes to say them. "Me, too."

A second later, a single gunshot sounds, and the blast is so loud in Michael's ear that for one blissful second, he thinks that it's been leveled at him, that the pressure to his temple has been cold steel instead of plastic all along. He waits for the gift of disembodied oblivion, but instead, he feels the phone slip from his grasp as merciless reality washes over him. The bullet wasn't for him, but as he sinks to the ground, he knows it may as well have been. The rest is just semantics.


End file.
